The Atlantis Keystone (23 page)

He was even feeling a bit awkward about Emma’s presence next to him. She had insisted that she should come with him, to support him like he had supported her and be there for him at the funeral in a few days’ time. He had asked her not to, on the basis that he wanted to be alone but she had been adamant that he needed her and that she would be happy to come. He was debating with himself whether this had been the right decision. Only a few hours had elapsed since his mother’s phone call and it was too early to say. It was almost as if Anna had made a statement from her grave that he should not move on and forget about her. He had allowed himself to fall in love again. Emma had preoccupied his thoughts over the last few months, rather than Anna, and even though his feelings had never been reciprocated, he had sensed over the last few days in Oxford that she was perhaps starting to think of him differently. Was it a coincidence that at this particular point in time, Anna had in a way come back into his life?

He knew that his thoughts were irrational and that the ghost of Anna was a figment of his imagination but it had been such a strange series of circumstances which had suddenly led to the recovery of her body. His mother had told him the story which she in turn had heard from the Swedish policeman who had visited them at Torpa the evening before to deliver the news in person. It involved the demise of a wealthy Swedish business man and his state of depression and guilt over his acts of lunacy at a time of distress. This man had lost his own wife in the Tsunami on the beach of Khao Lak. They had occupied a beach hut in the same area as Anna and Erik and he had spoken to Anna just before the the waves had struck. He had managed to hang on to a tree but his wife of twelve years had immediately disappeared out of sight. Anna had not even told him her name and he knew nothing about her and vice versa. But those few moments had somehow made a significant impression on him and had been etched into his memory. When Anna had lost her grip and gone under water he had risked his life to save her by jumping in after her. In vain he had searched the waters around him but had soon decided that it was a suicidal task. She was gone. After the event, like Erik, he had spent some time searching for his own wife. It had been an emotional time and when he had come across Anna’s body in one of the make shift morgues it was almost as if he had somehow found something to hold on to, something tangible; perversely almost proof that his own wife was dead. He had later explained to the police that it had felt like the right thing to do at the time. He had not managed to save this beautiful unknown woman from dying but because they had shared the last moments of her life, he had felt a strong connection with her and he had wanted to ensure her safe passage back to Sweden. He refused to leave her. The only way he could take her body to Sweden was to identify her as his own wife. He would later bury her in Sweden under his wife’s name, in a closed coffin. Their two children were able to visit the grave of their mother and never have to wonder whether their mother was still out there in Thailand, dead or alive. That doubt would always be preserved only for himself. After the funeral his life had taken a nasty turn. His oldest child had died in a freak car accident just outside the graveyard where Anna had been buried and in the aftermath he had lost his business; his life savings and his house had been repossessed. The guilt he was feeling over the lie he had told had absorbed him and he had concluded that it had been the ghost of the young woman he had buried in his wife’s place who had sent him mad and who had brought misfortune into his previously happy and prosperous life. Over a year after the funeral he had taken the decision to come clean; to tell of the crime he had committed and let the body of the unnamed woman return to her rightful home, just like she, he imagined, had demanded. Her coffin had been dug up and the man had helped to identify Anna from photos of missing persons from the Tsunami in Khao Lak. He had looked through over a hundred photos before Anna’s familiar green and brown eyes had stared back at him.

Despite everything, Erik was grateful to the man. He had been there for Anna in her last moments alive and brought her body back to Sweden, whatever his motive for doing so. He had eventually come clean about his crime; even though it had taken him over a year. It was certainly a tragic story. He was wondering how such an identification blunder could have been allowed to occur. The identification of corpses was conducted using dental records and DNA tests. But he was aware that at the beginning of the identification work, when family members were allowed to identify by inspection, the normal procedures had been side stepped and errors had been admitted by the Swedish authorities. There had been outrage in Sweden about this at the time, in particular as many were of the view that family members would not have been in a psychologically sound state to be able to positively identify their deceased loved ones. Certainly in this unfortunate case, this had proved to be true.

The plane touched down. After passport control and baggage collection they were once again breathing Swedish air. It was relatively cold but no snow. Emma was trying her best to cheer him up, happily chatting on about how wonderful it was to be back in Sweden and how she was looking forward to working on her dissertation in the Torpa library. Nowhere else had she felt more relaxed and focussed. She described Torpa as a second home. This did cheer Erik up, as he took this as a sure sign that she at least enjoyed his company. She also suggested that being near the scene of the crime would allow them to make progress on the search for the person who may have set Paul up. Even though it was normally quite costly, they took a taxi from the airport to the estate. As always, the trip took an hour. In this hour Emma had talked Erik through all angles of her dissertation that she was planning to cover over the next couple of weeks. Linguistics normally didn’t interest Erik and he was only half listening to her. The other half of his brain was planning his wife’s overdue funeral. One of the main questions was where to bury her. He knew where Anna herself would have preferred. He was unsure whether this would be appropriate though. The place was not a burial site.

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It had been one of Anna’s favourite spots, the Torpa woods by the Rune Stone. She had even suggested that they should have their wedding ceremony there but Erik had found the idea absurd. It was a pretty meadow with an interesting history but it was in the middle of the forest! In the end they got married at Torpa. The burial ground of the estate was where his ancestors lay buried and would probably also be where he would lay to rest one day. In the evening after their arrival at Torpa, Erik had called Anna’s parents. They had suggested their local grave yard in Gothenburg, only ten minutes from their house. With her there they could easily visit her grave and look after it. Erik had agreed to this but only an hour later Anna’s mother had called again, having changed her mind. She had known that this was not what Anna would have wanted. In fact, Anna would have hated their over sized local grave yard and its modern church. Her relatives were spread all over the country and there was no other obvious place. She reverted back to Erik’s original suggestion, by the Rune Stone, close to her loved one.

Already the next morning Erik suggested that they go there, to choose a suitable spot. Emma took his hand as they wandered the path to the now familiar meadow. He understood that this was to support him and to show that she cared for him as a friend, rather than any declaration of love. In any event, Erik appreciated it. He looked over at her. She looked nice in spite of her baggy winter jacket and hat. Her cheeks were healthy red and her eyes were shining in the winter sun. She looked very different from Anna though, who had had a naturally tanned face with freckles and distinct laughter dimples in her cheeks. He missed her. It was warm for February, around ten degrees. There was no snow on the ground and the sun was out.

“How will the logistics of this work?” Emma asked referring to the distance from the house to the stone.

“It’s a bit of a trek from Torpa and it feels like it’s in the middle of nowhere but one of our neighbours lives only five minute walk away from the stone and I’m sure they will let us all park there. It’ll be alright, as long as the weather holds up.”

They eventually reached the meadow. The stone looked just like it had done the previous summer but as expected; winter had taken its toll on the grass, leaving unflattering pale green moss in its place. There were no flowers to be seen and the whole place looked a bit sorry, scattered with dead leaves on the brink of decomposing and surrounded by naked trees. Even so Erik still sensed the magic of the place. The lonely stone on the little hill had not lost its romantic appeal, appearing as if it had been taken straight from the history books. Somehow it looked even more mysterious in these winter conditions than in the summer. It was easier to imagine the Vikings who had inscribed it. He noticed that Emma had tears in her eyes. He understood that she was thinking about Paul. He decided to embrace her. She cried on his shoulder for a moment. Erik wanted to cry but couldn’t. He looked around, trying to visualise where it would be appropriate to bury his wife. Somehow it didn’t feel right to put another stone in this place. The one stone there dominated the area and another stone would never live up to the one on the hill, or would even detract from it. Adding another stone might ruin the mystery and the balance of the place. It simply didn’t feel right. They walked around for a bit. Erik was just about to call it all off when Emma suddenly noticed something unusual.

“Look! Over there.” She was pointing in the direction of an area behind the hill. They walked over. Erik noticed it too. The earth had been recently disturbed. It looked as if someone had dug a hole.

“Very strange… Who would want to dig a hole out here?” He walked up to it and studied it closely.

“Someone who wants to hide something, Emma said with a mysterious smile.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Well, someone could have buried something here.” They were both thinking the same.

“It’s not impossible… We need to call the police.” Erik suddenly felt a surge of urgency.

“We might be wrong. It could be nothing and we would have wasted police time. I say we try to check ourselves first.” Emma jumped up and down on the spot to evaluate the ground.

“But the earth is hard. There’s no way we could dig into ice.” He was unsure about the whole DIY venture.

“True but look.” Emma was bending down, feeling the ground with her hand. “The sun is shining in this area and the earth is less hard here. We can at least try.” She clearly wanted to.

Erik gave in. “Fine, let’s try. We need a shovel though. Let’s go back to the house.”

It took them another hour and a half before they were back by the stone with the shovel. Nothing appeared to have been touched in their absence. Erik volunteered to dig. It was surprisingly easy. Only about thirty centimetres down they hit something hard. Whatever it was it was hidden in black plastic bags. They were getting excited. There really was something there and whoever had dug this had not bothered to dig very deep. It took them less than half an hour and most of their combined muscle strength to get the plastic bags and the heavy contents out of the hole. It was well packaged and wrapped in three separate bags, sealed with string. They exchange excited looks as Emma untied the string. The size corresponded to what they had seen on the TV screens six months earlier. It was about fifty centimetres tall, one and a half meters long and fifty centimetres wide. Very heavy. One thing Erik noted was that it seemed big enough for a coffin, at least for a small person or someone squashed in there. This sent chills down his spine. His thoughts went back to Anna. He decided that this was not the place for her to be buried. Emma had got the strings untied.

At that moment Erik suddenly had a realisation. “Oh my God, Emma. Could it be that Paul is the perpetrator after all? He could have ordered the hired burglar to hide it here; because this was a special place for the two of you. A place where he knew you would go!” Emma looked unsure so he quickly added: “I might be wrong.”

She hesitated but then responded: “No, it makes sense, I suppose. He is the main suspect. Everything is pointing in his direction. The burglar’s story, his disappearance, his recent deciphering progress – everything! You are right. This was a special place for us. This is where we kissed for the first time. It is a memorable spot and he might have thought of it as a good symbolic place to hide the tablet.”

“Shall we open the plastic bags or wait for the police?”

“We’ve got this far. We might as well open them.”

“Ok, this is the moment of truth. If the tablet is here I’ll know it immediately.”

They both held their breath. Emma folded back the opening of the plastic bags and the chest was revealed. It looked different from the black and white camera images they had seen on the TV screen but there was no mistake. This was the Torpa chest; the chest that had been hidden in the space in the wall in the old Torpa stone house for hundreds of years; the chest that had been stolen six months ago; the chest that Paul had been sure contained the other half of the Torpa tablet. It was greyish in colour and damaged on all sides from advanced age and possible heavy handling. Its wooden lid had numerous cracks, in particular around the black metal hinges. It looked as if it was several hundred years old – and it probably was. Its odour was murky. This was the moment of truth. Could the tablet still be in there?

Emma hesitated: “Oh my God! I can’t believe we’ve found it! This is the chest!”

“Sure is!” Erik grinned enthusiastically. “Shall we open it?”